Sibal, Sahay make final effort to dissuade Ramdev

New Delhi: Union ministers Kapil Sibal and Subodh Kant Sahay met yoga guru Baba Ramdev at a hotel here in a desperate attempt to discourage him from going ahead with his proposed fast against black money from Saturday, activists said.

The hotel has been selected for the talks as a ‘neutral venue’. To avoid sending any wrong signal, the ministers chose not to go to the Ramlila ground and Ramdev did not want to visit any of the ministerial offices.

As the government feared a repeat of a mass movement on the lines of that by social activist Anna Hazare in April or one even bigger, the Congress core committee has already started its efforts to negotiate with the yoga teacher.

Earlier, Congress leader Digvijay Singh criticised Ramdev by calling him an “industrialist” than a saint. He alleged that Ramdev took large amounts of money from people for seating them in the special rows in his yoga camps.

Sources say that Ramdev will visit Bhagat Singh Park and pay homage to Bhagat Singh, Rajguru and Sukhdev as he believes that these martyrs contributed enormously to India’s freedom. The yoga guru also plans to visit Rajghat.